Norma MacMillan

Davey and Goliath is a 1960s stop-motion animated children’s Christian television series. The programs, produced by the Lutheran Church in America, were produced by Art Clokey after the success of his Gumby series.

Each 15-minute episode features the adventures of Davey Hansen and his “talking” dog Goliath as they learn the love of God through everyday occurrences. Many of the episodes also feature Davey’s parents John and Elaine, his sister Sally, as well as Davey’s friends; Jimmy, Teddy, and Nathanial in earlier episodes; Jonathan, Jimmy, Nicky and Cisco on later ones.

The introductory music is based on the popular Christian hymn “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”, written by Martin Luther around 1529.

The show was aimed at a younger audience, and generally dealt with issues such as respect for authority, sharing, and prejudice. Eventually these themes included more serious issues such as racism, death, religious intolerance, and vandalism. In general, the characters found themselves in situations which had to be overcome by placing their faith in God. Davey’s friends, Nathanial and Jonathan Reed on the 70s episodes, were African-American, and some of the first African-American characters to appear as a friend of a television show’s lead character. While Our Gang in the 1930s and 1940s had African American children as friends of lead characters, that was a film series prior to television.